A Short History of the Summer Olympic Games
by Cap10
Summary: The 2016 Olympic Flame has officially been lit and the countdown for the Rio Games is winding down. Why not celebrate this international sports competition by brushing up with on your Olympic History with your favorite Hetalia characters. Today's Game: Olympic III...It was going so smoothly until two of Americas tried to get into a fist fight and Russia and Japan went to war..again
1. Olympic Games I-Athens, Greece

_**Author's Note**_ _\- Welcome to 'A Short History of the Summer Olympic Games.' I hope that everyone will enjoy joining me for this whorl wind tour of the Summer Olympics. I have prewritten a bunch of these, so you can expect new posts every couple of days, but if you can't wait for the next installment feel free to take a gander at this stories companion piece 'A Short History of the Summer Olympic Games.' Now that the housekeeping has been taken care of, the Olympic flame for 2016 has been lit in Athens. Let's celebrate by looking at the first modern Olympic Games._

 _ **Disclaimer**_ _\- I do not own Hetalia, and I have never actually been to a Summer Olympic Games, but that will not prevent me from finding opportunities to make fun of history._

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 _ **Summer Olympics Games 1-**_ _Athens Greece_

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As much as Greece hated to admit it, the only reason that the world was holding a modern Olympic Games was because it was a French idea. To be specific it was the idea of a particular French man Pierre de Fred Baron de Coubertin (known as Pierre de Coubertin for brevities sake) who had managed to convince the Brits that they should abandon the Olympic like games that they had been holding for the last twenty years. They should instead put their money and effort into international games.

At first the British Empire had insisted that the first Olympics should be held in London. After all, England had hosted several national Olympics and so already had the venues, but the French and Greek governments had insisted that in honor of history, the first modern, international Olympic games had to be hosted at the birthplace of the original games, Athens Greece.

Greece turned out to be an excellent host and local enthusiasm quickly made the first Olympic Games the largest international sporting event to date. Fourteen different countries participated and even though many of the athletes didn't have fans from their country to cheer them on, Greece welcomed them with welcome arms and filled overflowing stadiums in order to watch the best athletes in the world compete.

Perhaps the greatest victory for the home team was when one of their countrymen swept the Marathon. The cheers had been deafening when Spyridon Louis had received the first place silver metal of Zeus while Khariloas Vasiakos received a copper runner-up metal. Winning the Marathon would making up for the fact that the United States ended up taking home 11 silver metals, one more than Greece's 10.

For a first time event, the first Olympics ran fairly smoothly with only two hiccups worth mentioning. The first was the fact that the sailing/boating competition had to be canceled due to a combination of bad weather, lack of participants, and most embarrassing a lack of boats. The second hiccup was a Greek woman who insisted that she be allowed to run the marathon despite the fact that it went against historical tradition and the president of the Olympics had officially stated that woman competing in the Olympics would be "impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect." Despite the fact that the Olympic committee had made it clear that they would not accept Stamata Revithi running the marathon, she insisted on doing it the day after the official race. The only way the Greece could find to save face in such a disgraceful situation was to block the female runner from entering the stadium. Thus while Stamata would be able to run all she wanted in the streets of Athens, but because she would never be able to cross the official finish line Greece would be able to ignore her achievement.

After the first Olympics were such a success, Greece had started campaigning that the Olympics should stay in its historic home. In the end Greece loss and France was allowed to continue planning the 1900 Olympics for Paris. Still, Greece figured that eventually people would discover that no one could host an Olympic game as well as its birth country and fad of holding the games in countries around the world would end.

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 _ **Historical Note-**_ _The Greek hopes that the Olympics would have a permanent home in Athens was never realized, but they didn't make them stop competing to bring the games back to its birth place. If you excluded the Intercalated Games of 1906 (which will be included in this little series) Athens would not host another Olympics for 108 years._

 _ **End Note**_ _\- I hope that you enjoyed the mini history lesson and if you have little bits of Olympic history that you find particularly entertaining and would like to share please include them in the comments section. I am always looking for new tidbits for these stories._


	2. Olympic Games II-Paris, France

_**Author's Note**_ _\- Well, the Olympic flame, as well as it's back up, are on their way across the world. I am following it on twitter and will give notable highlights of its journey. Today's highlight is the fact that a Syrian Athlete and Refugee was selected to carry the Olympic flame in Athens. Ibrahim Al-Hussein is a swimmer who lost his leg in the Syrian Civil War. While he will not be competing Olympic Games this summer, but he will be competing in a regional Paralympic games and is expected to do very well. Now that we have gotten through the Olympic Flame update, time for the reviews update. Thank you to Rebecca Frost for being this stories first reviewers. Feedback is always appreciated._

 _ **Disclaimer**_ _-I do not own Hetalia, and I don't way enough to be particular good at Tug of War._

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 _ **Summer Olympics Games II**_ _\- Paris France_

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When France had suggested that the world should host an Olympic Games in the modern era, he had assumed that the first of the games would be held in Paris as part of the 1900 World Fair. Some countries (cough, America, cough) refused to exhibit enough patients to wait six years to host the first games. With international pressure mounting France had finally caved and allowed Greece to go first. After having a chance to host Greece he had made a fuss stating all future Olympics should be hosted in its historic home.

Screw its historic home. Athens was an interesting place in the textbooks, but it was 1900. Time to leave to leave the past behind and allow the Olympics to enter the present day. It was not like they were limiting themselves to just the events that the ancient Greeks competed in. Socrates did not participate in gymnastics, kite flying, or water polo. Alexander the Great was not known for his skills at ballooning, cricket, or motorcycle racing. Yet, the crowds loved the excitement of the pigeon race through the city and spectacle of teams trying to safe structures in the firefighting competition. As long as there where countries willing to compete and people interested in watching, France was determined to give the world a show that they would never forget. If that meant hosting an epic Tug of War competition or an underwater obstacle course then so be it.

He also had learned a few things from the Greeks, the biggest of which was that women should be allowed to compete. Yes, it went against the founding traditions of the Olympic Games, but so did the fact that the athletes were wearing clothing. While France would have been perfectly fine having everyone ditch their clothing, the public outcry that women were able to create over the fact that they were unable to participate in refined sports such as tennis wasn't worth fighting over.

While France been ready to nip the women problem in the bud, he hadn't been prepared to deal with the country that made the biggest fuss of the event. America had been incredibly upset about the fact that many events were held on Sundays. Several of the North American athletes were forced to withdraw instead of face the shame of competing on their religious day of rest. France decided that he wasn't going to change the schedule. Who wanted to give the American's an advantage in the games? Even with the handicap the United States still managed to come second in the medal count. A distance second, but with France holding to top position, anyone in second was a threat.

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 _ **Historical Note**_ _-The fact that a Frenchman played a major part in the organization of the first Olympic Games is the reason that French is still one of the official languages of the Olympic Games. The other official language is English, which was later added to the list of official languages when people started to realize that while the French were good at lobbying for the Olympics, the British were the people who actually had the experience to help organize these types of events as they had been organizing national and commonwealth Olympics for a couple of decades before the French suggested it should be an international event._

 _ **End Note-**_ _Yes you heard it right, kit flying was an event at the second Olympics, though the IOC hasn't been willing to call it an official Olympic sport._


	3. Olympic Games III-St Louis, USA

_**Author's Note-**_ _Hey everyone, the Olympic flame is currently on a plane flying from Switzerland to Brazil. It spent the day visiting the Olympic Museum and the United Nations buildings. It should land in Brazil bright and early tomorrow morning to begin its trek by foot across Brazil. Once it gets to Brazil it will actually get easier for me to figure out exactly where the flame is and keep you updated on the cool stories about the people carrying the flame. But before we get too deep in history, thanks again to Rebecca Frost for leaving a review._

 _ **Disclaimer**_ _-I don't own Hetaila, no one can confuse my citizenship._

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 _ **Summer Olympic Games III**_ _-St. Louis, Missouri, USA_

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Even though England had stated that he wanted to be the first English speaking country to host the Olympic Games, it was America who ended up making the best proposal. The city of Chicago, Illinois won the bid to host the first Olympic Games outside of Europe. Then when everything looked like things would run smoothly, America's states practically dissolved into a fist fight with Missouri insisting that St. Louis should host the Olympic Games instead. The Midwestern apparently was so insecure that the Olympic Games would eclipse his Louisiana Purchase Exposition that he threatened create a sporting event that leave the Olympics high and dry in Chicago if the games wasn't moved.

In the end, America ended up having to come back to the International Olympic committee to allow the title of host city to be transferred from Chicago to St. Louis. When it became clear that there was not going to be any other solution, France finally caved and allowed America to make the swap.

Unfortunately the Missouri verse Illinois fiasco would not be the only issue that would plague this particular Olympic Games. There would also be the fact that Russia and Japan decided to go to war…again…which made it very difficult for several nations to send athletes to the games. America tried to keep the games a float by combining the Olympic Games with the US National Championships. This meant that there were plenty of athletes in attendance. The problem was that they were pretty much all American, or Americanish athletes.

Yes there would be heights. Some like the fact that gymnast George Eyser won six medals even though his left leg was a wooden prosthetic, might have helped sooth the worlds ruffled feathers if all of the heroic success stories hadn't been about Americans. In the end various countries unhappy with their medal count tried to go after some of America's pointing out that many of the athletes were technically not American citizens yet. America decided to make a fuss back at them and they eventually dropped that line of argument, but not before everyone had a pretty bad taste in their mouths.

After things went that badly, America kind of doubted that he would be allowed to host the games again any time soon.

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 _ **Historical Note-**_ _The 1904 Summer Games were considered to be a bit of a flop. Between the arguing cities, the fact it was on the American Continent, and the Russo-Japanese War turn out by international athletes was incredibly low. Only 52 of the 651 athletes were not from the United States, this over half of the events only had American athletes participating. As you might assume, America kind of swept the medal count with 78 gold medals and 239 total metals. The rests of the world's total metal count came to 41. As you might expect, Europe wasn't particularly happy about that._

 _ **End Note**_ _\- Oh, America you will have better luck next time._


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